The invention relates in general to the field of electronic component enclosures, and, more particularly, to an object for mounting a electronic system component within a rack assembly.
Many systems have been proposed for racking and storing electronic equipment such as computer equipment, audio-visual equipment, musical equipment and the like. Specifically, numerous systems have been developed for computer equipment consisting of multiple components that require electrical supply cable connections and signal or data cable interconnections for each component. Therefore, in order to neatly, safely and efficiently store numerous pieces of equipment, a rack system is generally utilized. Electronic equipment such as computer components are often arranged in xe2x80x9cdrawersxe2x80x9d or units having particular dimensions and fasteners which permit mounting within a vertical rack or load-bearing frame. Rack-mountable components are widely used because they are easily installed or removed. A rack system also permits a flexible system configuration.
In many computer environments, including large-scale operations such as data centers, server-farms, web-hosting facilities and call centers, as well as small-scale computer environments, space is an important concern. For a computer environment to operate efficiently, electronic components are often neatly racked allowing for access to the components for installation and removal. Furthermore, a rack system provides access to the components for connecting the electrical supply cables and the data cables. As various types of electronic equipment have become more complex, more densely packaged and more compact in size, vertical frames known in the prior art have proved deficient or disadvantageous in several ways.
It is common in electronic equipment construction to mount electronic equipment in drawers or slide units which slide into a suitable equipment rack in spaced parallel relationship. The xe2x80x9cdrawersxe2x80x9d often comprise modular instrument housings which slide into suitable slots in the rack, or support structure. Most of the electronic equipment in the rack must be interconnected. The interconnection of the electronic components can cause problems when changes must be made to the overall system mounted on the rack or to any of the individual electronic components mounted to the rack.
In electronic equipment applications, numerous types of electronic equipment are often placed in a rack system. Different equipment manufacturers or distributors of electronic equipment often do not employ a consistent programming format and protocol. That is, there is little uniformity in the location and distribution of display panels, input/output connections and wiring interfaces of similar electronic equipment produced by different manufacturers. Even when identical programming formats and protocols are used, details of the placement of display panels, input/output connections and wiring interfaces differ from manufacturer to manufacturer. Therefore, many electronic assemblies that have identical electrical characteristics are not interchangeable without some sort of programming or reconfiguration.
There are also often mechanical differences between electronic equipment supports or drawers designed to slide into an equipment rack. These differences prevent easy interchangeability. The differences include rather simple items such as connector quantity, location, size and pin allocation. These seemingly trivial problems force conventional rack wiring and rack component placement to undergo extensive re-work when a system has to be reconfigured. Expensive, complex, and time consuming reconstruction, often beyond the capability of field personnel, must be performed. Thus, rack wiring and rack component placement has been a major impediment to all previous attempts to provide easy racking of systems.
As electronic components become more densely packed, more heat is generated and ventilation becomes critically important to ensure that the components will function properly. Prior art frames designed for use with less densely packed components are often not able to accommodate larger ventilation grilles or fans due to interfering structural members. Many conventional frames include structural members which, because of location or orientation, place severe restrictions on the design of exterior panels, doors, grilles and the like.
Thus, it is well known in the art to provide a rack system for storing and operating electronic components in an organized and accessible manner. However, numerous inventions have been proposed which limit the access to each of the racked electronic components. For example, in order to access any of the wiring interfaces for the interconnection of the electronic equipment to other components in the rack, one must turn the rack system housing around to access the rear of the rack system and the racked electronic components. This proves to be very difficult in many situations where space is limited in addition to situations where extensive cabling is required to operate a multitude of electronic components. Therefore, it is often desirable to mount several pieces of electronic components with the rear of the unit facing forward. In order to mount electronic equipment in this manner, a new bracket would be required that is specifically designed for mounting the electronic components with the rear-facing-forward. Thus, it is desirable to provide a rack system which employs a modular equipment rack bracket which allows for any type of electronic equipment to be mounted in either a front-facing-forward configuration or a rear-facing-forward configuration without requiring the user to utilize more than one equipment rack bracket.
Rinderer U.S. Pat. No. 5,284,254 discloses a rack for electrical equipment including a base having a bottom wall, and a back wall extending up from the bottom wall at the back of the rack. The bottom wall has a plurality of fastener openings therein through which fasteners may be driven into a surface supporting the rack for securing the rack to the surface. A pair of legs extend up from the bottom wall of the base at opposite sides of the base adjacent the back wall of the base. A cover may be removably fastened to the base of the rack in a position where the cover extends forward from the back wall of the base between the legs of the rack and is spaced above the bottom wall of the base to form, in combination with the back and bottom walls of the base, an enclosure for electrical wiring and the like. Removal of the cover from the base provides ready access to the electrical wiring and the like and also the fastener openings in the bottom wall of the base for facilitating securement of the rack to the surface. However, Rinderer fails to disclose a rack bracket and method for installing an electronic component in either front-facing-forward configuration or a rear-facing-forward configuration. Furthermore, Rinderer fails to disclose a frame member for supporting a plurality of electrical cabling for either a front-facing-forward or a rear-facing-forward electronic component for reducing the weight strain of the cabling on the electronic component""s cabling interfaces.
Mills U.S. Pat. No. 5,791,498 discloses a rack mount mechanism that includes first and second recessed slides fixed in a stationary position and first and second mounting brackets slideably mounted on the first and second recessed slides, respectively. The first and second mounting bracket arms each have front and back ends extending, for example, perpendicularly inward from the base of the mounting brackets. A frame is included which is attachable to the computer enclosure and has front and back rails. Each rail has an edge extending, for example, perpendicularly outward from the base of the rail and each edge has a plurality of apertures. An angled bar-nut is coupled to each of the rails by threading the angled portion of each angled bar-nut through an aperture in the edge of the rail and including a screw and a cage nut to secure the angled portion of each angled bar-nut to the edge of each rail. The front and back ends of the first and second mounting brackets are positioned between and coupled to each angled bar-nut and the edge of the front and back rails, respectively. However, Mills fails to disclose a method and apparatus for installing an electronic component in either a front-facing-forward configuration or a rear-facing-forward configuration including a frame member for supporting a plurality of electrical cabling.
Hull U.S. Pat. No. 5,794,794 discloses a modular rack system for supporting electronic equipment, comprising vertical and lateral frame members cooperating to form a vertical supporting frame, and shelf or rack members supported from a front of the frame for carrying the electronic equipment, wherein the vertical and horizontal frame members comprise channel members with walls defining continuous longitudinal openings at a rear of the frame and cooperating to form a system of interconnected raceways for receiving cables for forming connections to and between the electronic equipment, the walls of the channel shaped members defining ports for passing end connectors of cables. However, Hull fails to disclose a rack bracket and method for installing an electronic component in either a front-facing-forward or a rear-facing-forward configuration. Furthermore, Hull fails to disclose a frame member for supporting a plurality of electrical cables for either a front-facing-forward or a rear-facing-forward electronic component for reducing the weight strain of the cabling on the electronic component""s cabling interfaces.
Ott et al. U.S. Pat. No. 5,945,633 discloses a rack mountable cable distribution enclosure. The cable distribution enclosure includes a tray that slides forwards and backwards out of the cable distribution enclosure. The tray includes an adapter plate bracket which receives a plurality of adapter plates. The adapter plates are mounted in a horizontal orientation, parallel to the sliding tray. However, Ott et al. fails to disclose a method and apparatus for installing an electronic component in either a front-facing-forward or a rear-facing-forward configuration.
Gibbons U.S. Pat. No. 6,123,203 discloses a system and method for mounting a desk side computer system component within a housing. The mounting system includes a component chassis that defines an interior space, a mating slot formed in the component chassis that provides access to the interior space, an adaptive mounting ear and an insertion tab associated with the adaptive mounting ear. The adaptive mounting ear may be operable to simultaneously couple both the housing and the component chassis. When coupling the adaptive mounting ear to the component chassis, the insertion tab is inserted through the mating slot associated with the component chassis and into the interior space defined by the component chassis. The insertion tab remains within the interior space when the adaptive mounting ear is coupled to the component chassis. However, Gibbons is limited to mounting a desk side computer system component. Furthermore, Gibbons fails to disclose a mounting bracket and method for installing an electronic component in either a front-facing-forward or a rear-facing-forward configuration. Gibbons fails to disclose a frame member for supporting a plurality of electrical cables for either a front-facing-forward or a rear-facing-forward electronic component for reducing the weight strain of the cabling on the electronic component""s cabling interfaces.
Therefore, it is desirable in the art to provide a simple method and apparatus for installing and removing an electronic component in either a front-facing-forward configuration or a rear-facing-forward configuration within a rack system.
Further, it is an object of the present invention to provide a modular equipment rack bracket for use with a plurality of electronic components.
Furthermore, it is an object of the present invention to provide a modular equipment rack bracket for use with a standard rack system in addition to other known rack systems.
In addition, it is particularly desirable to provide a simple method and apparatus for mounting an electronic component in a rack system wherein one electronic device may be easily and quickly substituted for another electronic device.
It is further desirable to provide a simple method and apparatus for mounting an electronic component in either a front-facing-forward electronic component or a rear-facing-forward configuration within a rack system while allowing the electronic components within the rack to easily interface with one another.
It is also desirable to provide a modular equipment rack bracket and method for storing electronic components in a rack system that allows for ease of access to the electronic equipment.
It is still a further object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for mounting electronic components within a rack system that is strengthened for use in areas prone to seismic occurrences.
In view of the foregoing, clearly there exists a need for an improved method and apparatus for installing or removing numerous types of electronic components in either a front-facing-forward configuration or a rear-facing-forward configuration within a rack system. Furthermore, it remains a requirement in the art to provide an electronic equipment rack bracket that is compatible with a plurality of electronic components and can be affixed to a standard rack system, in addition to similar rack systems known in the art, which allows for ease of access in removing and installing electronic components. Further, it is desirable in the art to provide an electronic equipment rack bracket which relieves the strain of heavy cables on the interfaces of racked electronic components.
An object of the present invention is to provide a modular equipment rack bracket for use in a standard rack system that supports an array of electronic components supplied by different equipment manufacturers or distributors of electronic equipment. In addition, another object of the present invention is to offer a modular equipment rack bracket that provides a substantial degree of organization of the associated cables of an array of electronic components.
Disclosed is an improved method and apparatus for installing or removing numerous types of electronic components in either a front-facing-forward configuration or a rear-facing-forward configuration within a rack system. This invention provides a modular equipment rack bracket for supporting electronic components in a rack system which is compatible with a multitude of electronic components. In addition, the invention provides a modular equipment rack bracket that allows for any equipment component to be affixed to the rack system with the front-facing-forward or the rear-facing-forward without requiring modification of the individual components. The electronic equipment may be affixed to the rack system allowing for access to the wiring interfaces from either the front of the rack system or the rear of the rack system. Since many manufacturers and distributors of electronic equipment use numerous platforms for electronic components which employ minimal uniformity in the location and distribution of display panels, input/output connections and wiring interfaces it is desirable in the art for an equipment rack bracket to exhibit characteristics that allow for multiple choices in affixing electronic components in a single rack.
A modular equipment rack bracket for electronic equipment is disclosed including a first and second mounting bracket arm for mounting to a rack assembly and a frame member for supporting a plurality of electrical supply cabling, signal cabling or data cabling and the like. The first and second mounting bracket arms each have a front end and a back end. The front end of the first and second mounting bracket arms is affixed, for example, perpendicularly to the front of the rack assembly thereby allowing the first and second mounting bracket arms to extend inwardly within the rack assembly. The first and second mounting bracket arms have associated therewith a plurality of attachment means for attaching a multitude of electronic components thereto. In addition, the first and second mounting bracket arms comprise a plurality of coupling means for perpendicularly affixing the frame member thereto. The frame member is coupled to one of a plurality of coupling means of the first and second mounting bracket arms allowing the electronic component to be affixed to the mounting bracket arms in either a front-facing configuration or a rear-facing configuration without removing the affixed first and second mounting bracket arms from the rack assembly. The frame member is provided for supporting a plurality of electrical cabling for either a front-facing-forward electronic component or a rear-facing-forward component thereby reducing the weight strain of the cabling on the electronic component""s cabling interfaces. In addition, the apparatus may further include optional bracing so that the rack is strengthened for use in areas prone to seismic occurrences.
Other objects, features and characteristics of the present invention, as well as the methods of operation and functions of the related elements of the invention, and the combination of parts and economies of development and performance, will become more apparent upon consideration of the following detailed descriptions with reference to the accompanying drawings, all of which form a part of this specification.